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Friday, 14 June 2013

Black And White Movies

I never was much of a movie goer. It was always a now and
then thing for me. When movie rental places opened up in the late 1970s I would
sometimes get confused about the titles and bring home something I had already
seen before. This isn’t to say that I never went to a movie theatre, I did,
maybe just not as much as some who always wanted to see the latest thing on the
big screen.

I think the first full length movie I ever saw was on TV
around 1954 or 1955. It was Babes In Toyland with comedians Laurel and Hardy.
Television was desperate back then for stuff they could fill the hours with and
often their choices were wrestling or old movies. In fact they were so
desperate that they sometimes showed silent movies with musical backgrounds.

I remember seeing a number of Harold Lloyd silent movies
on the tube back then. About a month ago Turner Classics showcased some of
Lloyd’s movies and he certainly could give Charlie Chaplin a run for his money
as far as slapstick goes. He did some amazing stunts and managed to accomplish
them without the use of a few digits on one of his hands.

In 1956 my grandfather took me to see Mike Todd’s Around
The World In 80 Days at a theatre in downtown Montreal. It might have been at
The Capital, The Princess, The Palace, or at The Loews. That same year I saw
the movie Trapeze with Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis at a drive-in in
Plattsburg, New York. I know I saw a few other movies in theatres during the
50s but the only other one I can recall right now is Some Like It Hot with
Marilyn Munroe, Jack Lemon, and Tony Curtis. I saw it in London, England.

When I was about 8 or 9 there was a summer movie series
on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp.) that was sponsored by Kraft Foods. At the
beginning of the show the camera would pan in on a slowly turning camera guy on
a boom. The camera guy and the boom looked like they were made of wood. I got
to see some of the classics that summer including Key Largo, Pickwick Papers,
The Petrified Forest, Goodbye Mr. Chips, Great Expectations, and The Tuttles Of
Tahiti.

I watched these movies with my mother. Sometimes the lead
windows in our living room would be wide open due to the summer heat. My mother
seemed to know who all the charactor actors were. My guess is she saw a lot of
movies at the nearby Monkland Theatre when my father was overseas during WW2. I
think she had a bit of a crush on Tyrone Power.

When I was about 10 some distant relative died and we
inherited an extra TV. For a while that TV sat in the room I shared with my
brother who was a sound sleeper. Back then the CBC showed old movies at about
11:30 p.m. I laughed my ass off watching Terry Thomas in Blue Murder At St.
Trinians. One night my father walked into my bedroom in the middle of The
Fuller Brush Man with Red Skelton and the TV was removed the next day.

I kind of fell in love with old black and white movies. I
was hooked. Often the story lines were quite predictable but that wasn’t the
point. In some ways I was watching history,…. the old cars, the way people
lived, the mannerisms, the corny jokes, the clothes people wore, the lingo of
the times. On top of all that I was watching actors and actresses in their
prime.

﻿

In the late 60s old movies and old movie stars became
camp. You could buy a poster of Bogie, The Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields, Fred
Astaire and many others whose heyday had been 25 or 30 years earlier. In cities
across Canada and the US some second rate theatres began showing the classics
often catering to the college crowd.

Yes all old black and white movies weren’t classics. You
needed a lot of stamina to watch a George Arliss movie. Arliss was an ugly
looking old man who almost always seemed to be overacting. He was the same in
every movie he made. An hour and a half of listening to Arliss’s pompous
English accent while portraying Voltaire or Cardinal Richelieu could drain you.

George Arliss as Disraeli

My tastes in movies are kind of simple. I like a good
story. I like slice of life kind of things about average people. I like clever
humour and good dialogue. I don’t want to be rushed. I want to be able to
absorb. I want to come away from a movie knowing I have seen something that
makes me think or at least know that I didn’t waste my time. Unlike many others
I have little interest in science fiction, action movies, or fantasies. I lost
interest in cartoons a long time ago.

So…this is supposed to be a short story which means I can
only cover so much ground. Books have been written about singular movies. About
all I can offer up here is some observations and recommendations of some of the
thousands of movies I have seen over the years.I will only be talking about black and white movies.

The
Best Years Of Our Lives….when the officer played by Frederick
March returns home unannounced from the war and his teenaged kids answer the
doorbell to their apartment. He puts his finger to his lips to keep the kids
quiet. There is moment of silence. His wife who is played by Myrna Loy is in
the kitchen. She asks who is at the door. Suddenly she realizes that her
husband is home after being away for years.

The Best Years Of Our Lives

The
Big Broadcast of 1938….Bob Hope and his wife who is played by
Shirley Ross are close to divorcing. They are sitting at a bar on an ocean
liner. They sing the song Thanks For The Memories.

The Big Broadcast Of 1938

The
Oxbow Incident….Henry Fonda and Harry Morgan (MASH) are
cowboys standing at a saloon bar in some small western town probably around
1880. 2 men have just been hung who were suspected of cattle rustling and
murder. Fonda had tried to intervene on their behalf. It is discovered that the
man who was supposedly murdered is alive. Fonda starts to read the letter one
of the lynched men had written his wife before he died. The brim of Harry
Morgan’s hatblocks the view of Fonda’s
eyes while Fonda reads the letter.

The Oxbow Incident

Gold
Diggers Of 1933….A Great Depression movie made to cheer
people up in hard times. Ginger Rogers sings We’re In The Money in English and
Pig Latin.

Citizen
Kane….
Heavyset Orson Welles dances with chorus girls.

The
Third Man….Post 2nd World War Vienna, Austria. Orson
Welles, Joseph Cotton, Trevor Howard. The haunting Harry Lime Theme is played
throughout the movie.

The
Grapes Of Wrath….John
Steinbeck’s fine story about the downtrodden in the Great Depression.Henry Fonda plays Tom Joad.At the end of the movie and in spite of
experiencing much suffering in his own life and his family’s life Tom gives a
speech about not giving up. “Wherever there’s a cop beating up a guy…I’ll be
there!”

Strangers
On A Train….Farley Granger plays an amateur tennis player who meets
Robert Walker on a train. Granger wants to divorce his unfaithful wife and
Walker wants to murder his wealthy father. Walker tries to convince Granger
that they should murder for each other. One of Hitchcock’s best movies.

Strangers On A Train

The
Bolero. In this 1934 film before the Hays Code, Carole Lombard
and George Raft dance together and at one point his hands are on her breasts.

The
Asphalt Jungle…. Film Noir at its best. Nobody did it
better than Sterling Hayden. Sam Jaffe is on the run but stops at a roadside
café while his taxi driver who is going to drive him Cleveland waits. Jaffe
gives some teenagers a roll of nickels so they can play the jukebox and he can
watch them dance. He is arrested as he leaves.

The Asphalt Jungle

Casablanca…..”Here’s
looking at you kid!” Say no more. The classic movie with the classic lines,
made at a time when the world was getting a lot scarier. Bogart never looked
better. He was in his prime.George Raft
had turned down the part of Rick. Everything fell into place with this movie.

﻿

Casablanca

Great
Character Actors And Actresses

Lionel
Barrymore. Key Largo and It’s a Wonderful Life.
﻿﻿﻿﻿

Eve
Arden. Mildred Pierce.

Eve Arden

Jack Carson

Jack
Carson. Mildred Pierce.

Cecil Kellaway

Cecil
Kellaway. The Postman Always Rings Twice.

John
Qualen.

The Grapes Of Wrath and Casablanca.

John Qualen

Barry
Fitzgerald. Going My Way.

Sydney
Greenstreet. The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca.

Sydney Greenstreet

Peter
Lorre. The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca.

Peter Lorre

Elisha
Cook. The Maltese Falcon.

Elisha Cook

Hoagy
Carmichael. The Best Years Of Our Lives.

Monty
Wooley. The Man Who Came To Dinner.

Eugene
Pallette. My Man Godfrey.﻿﻿﻿

Eugene Pallette

Spring
Byington. The Devil And Miss Jones.

Spring Byington

S.Z.
Sakall. Casablanca

S.Z. Sakall

Mary
Wickes. Now, Voyager.

Charles
Coburn. The More The Merrier.

Charles Coburn

Edward
Everett Horton. Top Hat and Lost Horizon.

James
Gleason. Here Comes Mr. Jordan.

Some
Thoughts On Black & White Movie Stars

Humphrey
Bogart. I think he singularly has the best body of work in the
history of movies. He kind of stunk out the joint a bit when he started and he
wasn’t that great just before he died (he looked worn out in Sabrina) but in
between he made a number of exceptional movies that I don’t think will ever be
matched. The Petrified Forest, Key Largo, Casablanca, The Treasure Of The
Sierra Madre, African Queen, To Have And Have Not, The Caine Mutiny, The
Maltese Falcon (“The stuff that dreams are made of.”), Dark Passage, and The
Big Sleep. All actors and actresses have their prime and Bogey was in his in
Casablanca.

Bogie

Spencer
Tracy. Very likely the best movie actor ever. He could do it all
and make it look so easy, from screwball comedies to The Old Man And The Sea.
Bogie couldn’t do that.

Spencer Tracy

Bette
Davis. Nobody could play a bitch like she could. A bit over
the top at times.

Bette Davis

Clark
Gable.Always
a man’s man, he could do comedy pretty well too. You pretty well knew what you
were going to get with Gable and nobody seemed to mind. He was still playing
the stud right up until the end in The Misfits.

Clark Gable

Joan
Crawford. I never found her appealing. For some reason she looked
to me like someone with bad hygiene. She did knock it out of the park in Mildred
Pierce. She didn’t look great as she got older.

Joel
McCrea. Although he finished his career making mostly westerns he
had a nice care free presence when he was younger and was in some great
screwball comedies including The More The Merrier.

Joel McCrea

James
Cagney. I liked his energy but I found him to be too much of the
in your face type and he always seemed to be punching someone.

Ginger
Rogers. She could do it all, comedy, serious acting, singing and
dancing. She did everything that Fred Astaire did except she did it backwards
in heels.

Katherine
Hepburn. A good actress but her screechy voice could sound like
scraping your fingers on a blackboard. Was great in The African Queen.

Myrna
Loy. The perfect wife, she had great chemistry with William
Powell.

Errol
Flynn. You pretty well knew that he didn’t really give a shit
about much and was having fun until his time was done. He had a nice lilt in
his voice. You knew he liked the ladies. He had a wild off screen image.

Charles
Laughton. He had the fat leading actor category sewn up, was in
some great films.

Gary
Cooper. Pretty predictable in most movies as the strong silent
type but could do light comedy if he had to.

Dick
Powell. Looked like a nerd when he was younger but came into his
own later in his life in Film Noir movies.

Edward
G. Robinson. Great at playing gangsters as he did in Key
Largo.

Mickey
Rooney. An amazing talent. I’m still trying to figure out how a
guy that short could marry Ava Gardner.

Norma
Shearer. She might have been the first actress that brought both
class and glamour to the movies. She was one fine looking woman.

Jean
Harlow. Always looked like a waitress in some 1930s greasy
spoon to me. Never thought she was much to look at. She hardly ever wore a bra.
Died young.

Zachary
Scott. Nobody could play a cad better than him.

Zachary Scott

Marlene
Dietrich. Not my idea of a beauty.

John
Wayne. Could be good or terrible.The Conqueror. Really?

Cary
Grant. Nobody could touch him when it came to light comedy.

Cary Grant

Fred
Astaire. Average looking man with unaverage grace.

Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers

May
West. How anyone ever found her sexy is beyond me.

Jean
Arthur. Loved her!

Jean Arthur

Jimmy
Stewart. Yesterday’s Tom Hanks. Who didn’t like Jimmy Stewart?

Joseph
Cotton. Great voice.

Henry
Fonda. Made some great message movies including The Oxbow
Incident, The Grapes Of Wrath, and 12 Angry Men.

William
Powell. Could charm the pants off of women even with a weak chin.

Barbara
Stanwyck. Could play hardboiled, breezy, or vulnerable.
﻿﻿

Barbara Stanwyck

Frederick
March. Great actor with versatility.

Wallace
Beery. Great at playing stumble bums. Supposedly took part in
the beating death of Ted Healy in real life.

Greta
Garbo. I never got the mystery about her. It must have been a
30s thing.

Irene
Dunne. Mostly boring.

George
Brent. Soap opera kind of movie guy. Supposedly slept with more
actresses than almost any other movie star.

Leslie
Howard. Made some great movies like The Petrified Forest. Died
when the passenger plane he was in was shot down in WW2.

Rosalind
Russell. Was in His Girl Friday, one of the best written
dialogues ever in the movies..........................................................................................................................................................

Times have certainly changed since the older black and
white talkies of the 30s and 40s. Back then rich people were shown living the
high life oblivious to the hardships being suffered by their fellow citizens.
Being drunk was always supposed to be funny. Married couples always had separate
beds. Making love was basically just kissing. Black people were mostly
portrayed as simpletons.

It was what it was.

Now or then, if you want to escape for an hour and twenty
minutes, black and white movies can suck you right in. Sure we now know that
Frank Capra movies were often wishful thinking but what the hell. The lion
roars, bolts of electricity shoot out from the RKO logo, a woman in a robe holds
a torch in her hand, all signalling the beginning of the movie. Watching one of
those movies today is like a walk through 20th century history when
times were a lot simpler.

Stick the popcorn in the microwave. Fluff up that pillow
on the comfy couch. Dim the lights. Roll film.

And remember…if your dog is in the your living room with
you this might be right up his alley because he or she is of course…..colour
blind.

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About Me

I grew up in Montreal and have spent most of my life living in the Vancouver, B.C. area where I was a businessman for many years. I am now retired and living on Vancouver Island with Linda Spenard and our golden retriever Shelby. R.I.P. Cooper. I have 2 kids, twins, Dean and Leah who are 29.
I can be reached at my e-mail address colinatcove@shaw.ca
Pictures of some of our travels can be found on Picasa.
http://picasaweb.google.com/colinincanada (hasn't been updated for some time).
A special thanks to my older brother David for letting me use his old photos.
Thanks also to Linda Spenard for her photos and support.